Festival celebrates local storytellers
Author John Sargeant tested a possibly dodgy publisher by sending in two “really, really bad” draft chapters of his book.
“They told me it was so good they would publish it and didn’t need to see any more,” he said, laughing.
He didn’t bother getting back to them. Sargeant and children’s author Helen Griffiths will be presenting a discussion on self-publishing as part of New Plymouth’s inaugural writers festival, Our Words: A Festival of Local Writers and Storytellers, in March.
Self-publishing was very popular now, Sargeant said, so he would talk about pitfalls to avoid. “You pay $2000 or $3000 per book and nothing happens. They keep your money. The big thing is you lose all your publishing rights and your book’s dead in the water.”
It was when he was contacted by one of these publishers that he sent in the bad draft to see what would happen.
He now published through Amazon. “My claim to fame is I’ve managed to sell my books every month since they’ve been on there, the last two years. Some months I’ve only sold one, some months I’ve sold 24 or 25.”
Our Words was a brilliant idea, he said.
“The fact that it is localised, they see people who they can contact and chat to. Anything that encourages the arts is a good thing.”
New Plymouth District Council community library and programming lead Rebecca Beyer came up with the idea for a homegrown writers festival.
It was conceived with consideration of the other festivals the city had, and also conversations about what people in the community wanted, she said.
“There was a very strong message that local writers felt they would like to have some opportunities to engage with their community that we could facilitate. We’ve got authors, journalists, storytellers, artists, a wide range of talent. This is a great opportunity to showcase that.”
And it wasn’t just writers. Artist Haoro Hond and architect Murali Bhaskar would be talking about visual storytelling.
Our Words was free, thanks to an anonymous sponsor, and booking was only required for two workshops; writer Virginia Winder’s, on writing a review in 100 words or less, and author Mikaela Nyman’s session on flash fiction.
Different events would be held at different places:
Waitara and Inglewood libraries, and Puke Ariki museum and library, Beyer said.
“This is the first time we’ve tried something like it, so we’ll see what the interest is. We’re optimistic.” Short-story writer Emma Hislop said it was amazing that the writers festival was free to attend, as usually such events charged for entry.
“My first book of short fiction was published last year. It’s called Ruin. It took me 10 years to write, so I’m talking about the way the stories came to be and things that happened along the way.” People could hop from one event to the other, she said. “I’m hoping lots of people will come and get a lot out of it.” Hislop said she recommended Steph Matuku’s session on building resilience and how to push past barriers.